Ctrip.com International Ltd, the leading on-line travel services provider in China, will speed up its overseas tour market expansion to cash in on the country's growing outbound tourism, Chief Executive Officer Fan Min told China Daily on the sideline of the Global Tourism Economy Forum in Macao.

Market competition within the tourism sector is intense in the mainland these days, and oversupply has become an issue haunting the industry, Fan said, adding that some real needs remain unsatisfied as "fine service systems are not easy to set up", particularly high-end products catering to the needs of the rich.

The Nasdaq-listed company will continue to boost sales through its traditional on-line platform, which has provided ample and clear choices to clients. At the same time, "off-line sales" have also been put onto the shelves, including premium winery tours, which aim to serve the growing wealthy population's needs in the country, according to Fan.

"Our outbound tourism services are also expected to surge rapidly on buoyant demand, although it remains a relatively small portion of the whole cake of the group currently," Fan said in Macao on Monday, without elaborating on the exact proportion of their outbound tourism within all their current products.

Ctrip's focus on high-end tourism products was not just a recent move. At the end of April this year, the company had announced its acquisition of Trip TM, a four-year-old hyper-luxury vacation operator to "help realize Ctrip's goal to corner half the market share of the top-end tours in the country".

"Ctrip currently serves millions of clients in China, but the potential consumers in the market could be tens of that," Fan added.

The outbound travel markets maintained strong growth momentum in the mainland over the years with the number of outbound travelers growing by 22.85 percent year-on-year to 70.25 million in 2011, and the figure surged by another 20 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, according to the China Outbound Tourism Yearbook 2012, which estimated the number to reach 100 million by the year of 2015.

Although the travel-service provider aims at a breakthrough in outbound products and high-end tours, Fan admitted that Ctrip is cautious with its expansion plans. He added that the Greater China tourism services remained the cornerstone of the group, and "solid business foundation in China will make the go-out plan much easier."

The chief executive officer, who is still bullish on the market outlook despite the slowdown of the overall mainland economy, acknowledged that some consumers may be tight with money, but he believes that people's travel plans would not be scrapped during hard times, but rather they would probably choose some cheaper itinerary to relieve their boredom instead.

China is widely anticipated to overtake Germany and the US to become the world's largest source of outbound travelers by the end of this year, Matt Thompson, project director for the China Outbound Travel and Tourism Market, said at a tourism fair held in Beijing this April.

Thompson predicted some 78 million Chinese will travel overseas in 2012, with the consumption generated from outbound tourism to hit a record high of $80 billion this year.

litao@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 09/11/2012 page2)